July, the month dedicated to the Most Precious Blood

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood ofJesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for the propagation andexaltation of my dear Mother the Holy Church, for the safety andprosperity of her visible Head, the Holy Roman Pontiff, for thecardinals, bishops and pastors of souls, and for all the ministers ofthe sanctuary.Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As itwas in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.Amen. Blessed and praised forevermore be Jesus Who hath saved us byHis Precious Blood! Amen.

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood ofJesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for the peace andconcord of nations, for the conversion of the enemies of our holyfaith and for the happiness of all Christian people.Glory be, etc. above

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood ofJesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for the repentance ofunbelievers, the extirpation of all heresies, and the conversion ofsinners.Glory be, etc. above

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood ofJesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for all my relations,friends and enemies, for the poor, the sick, and those intribulation, and for all those for whom Thou willest I should pray,or knowest that I ought to pray.Glory be, etc. above

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood ofJesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for all those who shallthis day pass to another life, that Thou mayest preserve them from thepains of hell, and admit them the more readily to the possession ofThy Glory.Glory be, etc. above

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood ofJesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for all those who arelovers of this Treasure of His Blood, and for all those who join withme in adoring and honoring It, and for all those who try to spreaddevotion to It . .Glory be, etc. above

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood ofJesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for all my wants,spiritual and temporal, for the holy souls in Purgatory, andparticularly for those who in their lifetime were most devoted tothis Price of our redemption, and to the sorrows and pains of ourdear Mother, most Holy Mary . . .Glory be, etc. above

Blessed and exalted be the Blood of Jesus, now and always, andthrough all eternity. Amen.

A HIDDEN TREASUREAppearing to one of the sisters of her community shortly after herdeath, St. Teresa of Avila told the sister that she would be willingto return to a life of suffering on earth until the end of time ifthereby she could merit that degree of glory with which God rewardsone devoutly recited "Hail Mary." St. Paul speaks in like manner whenhe says: "The sufferings of this life are not to be compared with theglory to come."

If one short prayer is thus rewarded, what reward awaits those whooffer to the Eternal Father, the Precious Blood of Jesus. "Anoffering," says Father Faber, is "More than a prayer." "In prayer weare the recipients, but when we make an offering God vouchsafes toaccept something from us." In Our Lord's own words to Sister MaryMartha Chambon, Apostle of the Holy Wounds, " To offer to the EternalFather the Sacred Wounds of Jesus is to offer Him His Glory, to offerHeaven to Heaven." Each time you offer to My Father the merits of MyDivine Wounds," He said to her, "You gain an immense fortune . . .You must not remain poor, your Father is very rich."

If you and I, at this very moment, were standing on the threshold ofeternity, we would see a limitless duration extending before us whichour vision would fail to terminate. Looking on this endlessness theawful truth would come to us that the time of merit had passedforever. The saints realized this truth while yet in life, and we cansee the vastness of their reward.

Those who have passed into eternity realize that there will be nofurther opportunities for additional merit, for time has passedforever. If regrets were possible in Heaven, unused opportunitieswould be the cause, for the blessed know what greater capacity forgiving accidental honor to God they would have had if they had usedall their opportunities. Because of God's mercy they have no regrets,but their status is sealed forever.

The position of the priest in heaven must be tremendous for he offersdaily a Victim-of-Infinite-Worth; and yet each one of us can offer thesame Victim in a different manner by sincerely saying:"Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Bloodof Jesus."

Just suppose that if you were to make the seven offerings each day.It would take only a few minutes of time, and yet the vast meritgained would last eternally.

What an investment!

THE PRECIOUS BLOOD AND HEAVENPromises of Our Lord to Sister Mary Martha Chambon

Those who pray with humility and who meditate on My Passion, shallone day participate in the glory of My Divine wounds. Their memberswill receive from them a resplendent beauty and glory.

The more you shall have contemplated My Painful wounds on this earth,the higher shall be your contemplation of them glorious in Heaven.

The soul who during life has honored and studied the Wounds of OurLord Jesus Christ and has offered Them to the Eternal Father for theSouls in Purgatory will be accompanied at the moment of death by theHoly Virgin and the Angels; and Our Lord on the Cross, all brilliantin glory will receive her and crown her.

REFLECTIONSLife is short and death is sure,The hour of death remains obscure.A soul you have, and only one;If that be lost all hope is gone.Waste not your time, while time shall last;For after death 'tis ever past.The all-seeing God your Judge will be,And Heaven or Hell your destiny.All earthly things will fleet away.Eternity will ever stay.

John the Baptist has pointed out the Lamb, Peter has firmly established his throne, Paul has prepared the bride; their joint work, admirable in its unity, at once suggests the reason for their feasts occurring almost simultaneously in the cycle. The alliance being now secured, all three fall into shade; whilst the bride herself, raised up by them to such lofty heights, appears alone before us, holding in her hands the sacred cup of the nuptial-feast.

This gives the key of to-day's solemnity, revealing how its appearance in the heavens of the holy liturgy at this particular season is replete with mystery. The Church, it is true, has already made known to the sons of the new covenant, in a much more solemn manner, the price of the Blood that redeemed them, its nutritive strength and the adoring homage which is its due. On Good Friday earth and heaven beheld all sin drowned in the saving stream, whose eternal flood-gates at last gave way beneath the combined effort of man's violence and of the love of the divine Heart. The festival of Corpus Christi witnessed our prostrate worship before the altars whereon is perpetuated the Sacrifice of Calvary, and where the outpouring of the precious Blood affords drink to the humblest little ones, as well as to the mightiest potentates of earth, lowly bowed in adoration before it. How is it, then, that holy Church is now inviting all Christians to hail, in a particular manner, the stream of life ever gushing from the sacred fount? What else can this mean, but that the preceding solemnities have by no means exhausted the mystery? The peace which this Blood has made to reign in the high places as well as in the low; the impetus of its wave bearing back the sons of Adam from the yawning gulf, purified, renewed and dazzling white in the radiance of their heavenly apparel; the sacred Table outspread before them on the waters' brink, and the chalice brimful of inebriation--all this preparation and display would be objectless, all these splendours would be incomprehensible, if man were not brought to see therein the wooings of a love that could never endure its advances to be outdone by the pretensions of any other. Therefore, the Blood of Jesus is set before our eyes at this moment as the Blood of the Testament; the pledge of the alliance proposed to us by God, the dower stipulated by eternal Wisdom for this divine union to which he is inviting all men, and its consummation in our soul which is being urged forward with such vehemence by the Holy Ghost.

'Having therefore, brethren, a confidence in entering into the Holies by the Blood of Christ,' says the apostle, 'a new and living way which he hath dedicated for us through the veil--that is to say, his flesh--let us draw near with a pure heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with clean water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he is faithful that hath promised. Let us consider one another to provoke unto charity and to good works. And may the God of peace who brought again from the dead the great Pastor of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Blood of the everlasting Testament, fit you in all goodness, that you may do his will: doing in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom is glory for ever and ever. Amen!'

Nor must we omit to mention here, that this feast is a moment of one of the most brilliant victories of holy Church in our own age. Pius IX had been driven from Rome in 1848 by the triumphant revolution; but the following year, just about this season, his power was re-established. Under the aegis of the apostles on June 28 and the two following days, the eldest daughter of the Church, faithful to her past glories, swept the ramparts of the eternal city; and on July 2, Mary's festival, the victory was completed. Not long after this, a twofold decree notified to the city and to the world the Pontiff's gratitude and the way in which he intended to perpetuate, in the sacred liturgy, the memory of these events. On August 10, from Gaeta itself, the place of his exile in the evil day, Pius IX, before returning to reassume the government of his States, addressing himself to the invisible Head of the Church, confided her in a special manner to his divine care, by the institution of this day's festival; reminding him that it was for his Church that he had vouchsafed to shed all his precious Blood. Then, when the Pontiff re-entered his capital turning to Mary, just as Pius V and Pius VIII had done under other circumstances, the Vicar of Christ solemnly attributed the honour of the recent victory to her who is ever the help of Christians; for on the feast of her Visitation it had been gained; and he now decreed that this said feast of July 2 should be raised from the rite of double major to that of second class throughout the whole world. This was a prelude to the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which the immortal Pontiff had already projected, whereby the crushing of the serpent's head would be completed.